Bear Mountain ski resort crew labors to be ready for War of Rails

A crowd gathers to watch the War of Rails on Saturday afternoon at the Bear Mountain ski resort in Big Bear Lake. It’s considered Bear Mountain’s biggest spectator event of the year.
Staff Photo by Greg Cappis

BIG BEAR LAKE >> Snow was falling from the dark Saturday morning sky when Clayton Shoemaker arrived at work and hopped inside a piece of machinery.

The sun wouldn’t illuminate Bear Mountain for a few hours. But Shoemaker and the rest of the ski area’s terrain park crew had to have a course finished in time for one of the resort’s premier events, after 36 hours of torturous weather.

“The War of Rails is our biggest spectator event during the winter and our only ski event,” Shoemaker said.

The crew had the large jumps, wall rides and rails dialed in on Thursday after a week of work. Then the storm came.

On Friday — the scheduled opening of the contest — the Bear Mountain ski resort had to close around 11:30 a.m. due to high winds and lightning, postponing the contest a day, according to Chris Riddle, the resort’s vice president of marketing.

Then, as the sun started to set, the rain turned to snow and the resort reported 9 inches of accumulation overnight.

Shoemaker — director of park development and youth marketing — and other members of the terrain park crew started work around 4 a.m. Saturday to fix the mess Mother Nature made of their course.

“We were ready to go,” Shoemaker said as he walked to his office to change his hat and jacket before appearing in front of a local TV camera during its 6 a.m. newscast. “Then the rain came.”

After the quick TV interview, Shoemaker was back in his machine, dressed in a rust-orange beanie, blue flannel shirt and black snowpants with suspenders.

The machine is called a snowcat, used for pushing around snow and smoothing out the course. Shoemaker drives in reverse almost as often as he cruises forward.

The front of the red “cat” has a black blade, similar to a snowplow that Shoemaker controls with a joystick.

Behind the rear window is a yellow tiller the 34-year-old uses to smooth the snow’s surface, like a Zamboni on a hockey rink.

As Shoemaker and his machine moved large piles of snow, other members of the terrain park crew shoveled and raked the takeoffs and landings of the nine features made of snow and 12 metal objects, like handrails and walls.

The group started building the course on Thursday, earlier than normal, because they saw the weather forecast and needed time to gather snow from other runs. Snowfall has been lacking this year.

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The planning stage started months before the resort received its first snowfall.

Shoemaker along with professional skier Craig Coker of Big Bear Lake designed the course last summer. It was Coker who brought War of Rails to his home resort.

“Skiing has always been lacking at Bear, and I wanted to bring skiers (here) and show what they’re all about,” Coker said, looking at the course.

Shoemaker, who normally builds jumps and jibs for the snowboarder-dominant resort, said skiers can go faster and bigger, allowing him to construct larger hits.

“Skiers are awesome, in that sense,” said Shoemaker, a snowboarder.

And the features aren’t meant for acrophobics. The course forces skiers to air 10-15 feet before sliding across, up or over a metal rail.

“It’s the biggest course we’ve built,” said the 13-year-veteran employee of Bear Mountain.

Before moving to Big Bear Lake, Shoemaker worked at Mount Shasta in Northern California.

“Bear Mountain and Snow Summit were world famous for having the best terrain parks when I was a kid, so I wanted to work here,” he said.

Besides shaping and designing the terrain parks at Big Bear Mountain Resorts, Shoemaker helped build the course for the Winter X-Games, held in Aspen, Colo., two months ago. Next week he’ll travel to South Korea to construct a rail jam course.

While treading over the fresh snow, Shoemaker said he felt bad ruining the fluffy powder.

“If we didn’t have an event today, I’d probably be taking powder laps,” he later added. “That’s just the truth.”

But it’s part of his job, one he completed just as the resort opened to the public at 8 a.m.

While Shoemaker parked the snowcat, other members of the park crew continued raking and shoveling until warm-ups began. Then they hopped on snowmobiles and caravanned competitors to the top of the course during the event, which wraps up this afternoon.